A majority of Crohn's disease (CD) patients will require a partial bowel resection during their disease course. Most of these patients will experience a post-operative recurrence of the disease. Multiple methods for detecting recurrence are utilized in the field. For example, endoscopy within the first year after surgery can reveal new epithelial lesions. The severity of these lesions predicts the recurrence of clinical symptoms and the need for additional surgical intervention. Alternatively, recurrence can be detected or predicted using radiographic or histological techniques.
Since the above techniques are a burden to the post-operative patient, predictors of endoscopic, radiographic, or histological recurrence and alternative predictors of clinical recurrence are warranted. A wide range of clinical, serological, and histological features have been identified. However, the literature often provides conflicting data regarding the efficacy of these features or combinations thereof for prediction of recurrence.